An Ember in the Ashes(103)

So that’s what those hooks are for.
Is it possible Veturius won’t hurt me? He’s pulled me from death so many times. Why do that if he wishes violence upon me?
“Why did you help me?” I blurt out. “Down in the dunes after the Commandant marked me, and at the Moon Festival, and when Marcus attacked me—every time, you could have turned away. Why didn’t you?”
He looks up, thoughtful. “The first time, I felt bad. I let Marcus hurt you the day I met you, outside the Commandant’s office. I wanted to make up for it.”
I make a small noise of surprise. I didn’t even think he noticed me that day.
“And then later—at the Moon Festival and with Marcus—” He shrugs.
“My mother would have killed you. Marcus too. I couldn’t just let you die.”
“Plenty of Masks have stood and watched as Scholars died. You didn’t.”
“I don’t enjoy others’ pain,” he says. “Maybe that’s why I’ve always hated Blackcliff. I was going to desert, you know.” His smile is sharp as a scim and as joyless.
“I had it all planned out. I dug a path from that hearth,” he points, “to the entrance of the West Branch tunnel. The only secret entrance in the whole of Blackcliff. Then I mapped my way out of here. I was going to use tunnels the Empire thinks are caved in or flooded. I stole food, clothing, supplies. I drained my inheritance so I could buy what I needed on the way. I planned to escape through the Tribal lands and take a ship south from Sadh. I was going to be free—from the Commandant, Blackcliff, the Empire. So stupid. As if I could ever be free of this place.”
I almost stop breathing as his words sink in. The only secret entrance in the whole of Blackcliff.
Elias Veturius has just given me Darin’s freedom.
That is, if Mazen is telling the truth. I’m not so sure anymore. I want to laugh at the absurdity of it—Veturius giving me the key to my brother’s freedom, just as I realize that such information might not mean anything.
I’ve been silent too long. Say something.
“I thought being chosen for Blackcliff was an honor.”
“Not for me,” he says. “Coming to Blackcliff wasn’t a choice. The Augurs brought me here when I was six.” He picks up his scim and slowly wipes it clean. I recognize the intricate etchings on it—it’s a Teluman blade. “I lived with the Tribes back then. I’d never met my mother. I’d never even heard the name Veturius.”
“But how...” Veturius as a child. I’ve never considered it. I’ve never wondered if he knew his father, or if the Commandant raised him and loved him.
I’ve never wondered, because he’s never been anything more than a Mask.

“I’m bastard-born,” Veturius says. “The only mistake Keris Veturia has ever made. She bore me and then exposed me in the Tribal desert. It’s where she was stationed. That would have been the end of me, but a Tribal scouting party happened along. Tribesmen think baby boys are good luck, even abandoned ones. Tribe Saif adopted me, raised me as one of their own. Taught me their language and stories, dressed me in their clothes. They even gave me my name. Ilyaas. My grandfather changed it when I came to Blackcliff. Turned it into something more appropriate for a son of Gens Veturia.”
The tension between Veturius and his mother is suddenly clear. The woman never even wanted him. Her ruthlessness astounds me. I’d helped Pop bring dozens of newborns into the world. What kind of person could leave something so small, so precious to die of heat and starvation?
The same person who could carve a K into a girl for opening a letter. The same person who would dash out a five-year-old’s eye with a poker.
“What do you remember from that time?” I ask. “From when you were a child? From before Blackcliff?”
Veturius frowns and puts a hand to his temple. The mask shimmers strangely at his touch, like a pool rippling beneath a drop of rain.
“I remember everything. The caravan was like a small city—Tribe Saif is dozens of families strong. I was fostered by the tribe’s Kehanni, Mamie Rila.”
He speaks for a long time, and his words weave a life before my eyes, the life of a dark-haired, curious-eyed child who snuck out from lessons so he could go adventuring, who waited eagerly at the edge of camp for the men of the Tribe to return from their merchant forays. A boy who scrapped with his foster brother one minute and laughed with him the next. A child without fear, until the Augurs came for him and plunged him into a world ruled by it. But for the Augurs, it could be Darin he is speaking of. It could be me.
When he falls silent, it’s as if a warm, gold haze has been lifted from the room. He has a Kehanni’s skill at storytelling. I look up at him, surprised to see not the boy but the man he has become. Mask. Aspirant. Enemy.
“I’ve bored you,” he says.
“No. Not at all. You—you were like me. You were a child. A normal child. And that was taken from you.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Well, it certainly makes you harder to hate.”
“Seeing the enemy as a human. A general’s ultimate nightmare.”
“The Augurs brought you to Blackcliff. How did it happen?”
This time, his pause is longer, heavy with the taint of a memory better forgotten.
“It was autumn—the Augurs always bring a new crop of Yearlings in when the desert winds are at their worst. The night they came to the Saif encampment, the Tribe was happy. Our chief had just returned from a successful trade, and we had new clothes and shoes—even books. The cooks slaughtered two goats and spit-roasted them. The drums beat, the girls sang, and stories poured from Mamie Rila for hours.